InsaneJournal

Sanctioned abuse = “freedom of religion”?
The state of Texas recently ruled that the child protection services acted wrongly when they took all the children from the FLDS cult in Utah and put them into temporary state care. Their reasoning, in a 6-3 decision, is that the children weren’t in “imminent danger” (with the dissenting judges noting the danger still applied to any pubescent female children).

This left me in a bit of a strange place. I don’t like their decision in the least bit, but I understand.

It doesn’t matter to the Texas supreme court that this group is teaching its children that their particular sort of gender dichotomy is their only way to get to heaven, that rape is a-okay, that education is unnecessary (especially if you’re female), that it’s fine for a fifty year old man to marry twelve and thirteen year old girls and that those pesky extra boys need to be kicked out onto the street so the older men can have all the wives they need to get that extra-special place at God’s table. It doesn’t really matter to them how women and their children in this sect are parceled out like property should their husband fall out of favor, are trapped into getting only incredibly sub-standard medical treatment, are medicated if not institutionalized should they express dissatisfaction with their lives, and are told they can only get into heaven if invited by their husbands. It also apparently doesn’t matter how the group imposes upon its members that the outside world, with all of its intact horrors and revelations and progressions, is really absolute evil. That doesn’t matter.

And for a surprising number of laypeople commenting on the news stories, everything these kids had to “look forward” to became null and void in light of the mothers who could only continually repeat how they wanted their poor babies back. In the meantime, the poor babies—for whatever reason—wouldn’t rise up and decry the actions of the only family they know. (Where’ve we seen this behavior before? Oh, here, and in relation to various cults & abusive situations. I believe we like to call it Stockholm syndrome.) And if the poor babies would honestly say which parent was their real parent, we might be in business.


But no. No matter the stories we've seen, the tales told, the utterly god-awful things these people have to endure which slowly leak out, bit by hiccuping bit, to the completely overloaded social workers. They don't come into play here.

The deciding factor to these kids being put back with their parents is that they won’t necessarily or immediately be booted out, force-married, institutionalized, drugged, possibly murdered, and/or raped if they return. There’s a significant likelihood, though. I’m seeing things from the viewpoint of the CPS here: Just because a parent beat the shit out of a kid before and might do it again doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll do it immediately, or even that they’re guaranteed to repeat the offense. But I sure as hell wouldn’t trust them. And if you factor in how this theoretical parent is as self-justified as only a fanatic can be, how they’ve got a pervasive pattern of abuse, and that they’ve got a hardcore brainwashing thing going on (and as anyone who's paid attention to religion as a social institution knows, indoctrination works best with younger subjects), and I can see why their kids should be kept far away from them.

But then again, what the FLDS is imposing on these kids is (initially) an idea. If the parental figures raised a hand to ‘em instead, or if the damned teen brides would just talk about when & how they were married, things would be infinitely simpler—but this seems exemplary of how our society deals with physical vs. mental abuse. The crime is not readily visible or easily discussed; therefore it becomes a whole lot harder to prove, which makes taking the kids away a hell of a lot harder to justify. Throw in religious freedom, the classic slippery slope argument (are we next to take children away from families whose religions produce the most violent crazies?), & my own quip about how there’s only one kind of person who fears an idea, and things get even more complicated. It is not necessarily wrong or illegal to introduce a child to a religion, or to raise them with their parent’s choice of moral upbringing. I'm all for religious tolerance—I personally don’t care if you worship a rock—but my tolerance has a pretty defined boundary of "An it harm none." I don't call a religion benevolent if it shrills on about how gender inequality is the most just way, if it requires the loss of one’s entire identity & rights to their own body, if it poses constant threat to a person's well-being, or if it comes with the overhanging worry that one may be kicked out eternally damned and lose their entire family should they run afoul of the wrong higher-up.

But the kids needed to go back to this spiritual cesspool, this thousands-strong patch of human blight.

But the gigantic list of problems with this particular case grouping; but how America's taxpayers are funding (and thus condoning) this group (& thus the group's illegal activities) under the umbrella of religious tolerance; but how a loophole in the welfare system has all those extra wives being "single mothers" and thus state-supported; but the current piles of steady-holding nonfiction bestsellers written by women who've escaped from these groups and who are determined to let everyone possible what's going on so this shit can be shut the fuck down. But, but, but.

Do I agree in this particular case that the kids should be returned? Fuck no. But I understand. I understand that FUBARing a case like this would set a precedent for any to follow; I understand that "suspected future danger, at some point" in no way equals "immediate danger."

I also understand the fallout that psychologists and social workers have to deal with after the fact, when they get to work the excommunicated or the escaped members through a systematic restructuring of everything they’ve ever known to be true. If there was a middle ground, where the members could be exposed to everyday society (in all its glory and horror) and be given that much more freedom to decide for themselves what’s best, then things might not be so bad. But fundamentalism doesn’t allow for a middle ground. The options, then, are to a) stand back or b) try to justify intrusion. The justification of this attempt failed. For the sake of the people who have been and shall be victimized by this group, we should hope that the next one’s does not.